The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness by Kevin DeYoung
DeYoung doesn't like camping. "Who decided that vacation should be like normal life, only harder?" Do you look at personal holiness like DeYoung looks at camping? It's fine for other people, and I sort of respect people who make their lives harder than they have to be, but it's not my thing. It wasn't something we did growing up, and my church doesn't talk about it much.
Summarize the great commission for yourself in one sentence before continuing. It is often summarized as "preach the gospel to all nations" or even "make disciples everywhere you go", but it has an emphasis on holiness and obedience that is seldom remembered. Not only are we to preach, baptize, and make disciples, we should be "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you". This isn't observe like one would the work of a great artist, but a call to holiness (which literally means set apart). If we are set apart by our obedience we should be recognized for it by the world.
In fact, Paul says in Romans "your obedience is known to all." In Revelation 21 we get a glimpse of heaven, without a lot of specifics, but we we do know is that it will be glorious shining with the radiance of God's presence. It will be holy. If you dislike a holy God, why would you want to live with him forever? Even if you could enter heaven without holiness there would be no joy there for you. Spurgeon put it "sooner could a fish live upon a tree than the wicked in Paradise."
1 Peter 1:16 and many other scriptures command us to be holy many more times than we are commanded to take care of the needy or engage in politics, but it is much easier to declare war on poverty than war on your own sin.
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